There are yellow roses behind the computer. I am sitting at the kitchen table beside the wood stove and working where I stopped last night...too late to pack everything up and move it to its appointed place(s). There are post-its at my elbow, and a hair comb, and some shallots in a colander. There is an old Casio watch that I have been meaning to put on in lieu of my good watch which takes a beating from all the travel. But somehow I never get around to it. There is my ipad - so yes, I am a two computer person. When did we become so addicted that we needed two computers per person? Sort of like needing more than one car (only I think that's worse). There is a pen (for writing on the post-its) and some caffeine candies and my camera and a short wave radio that Mom gave Herb for Christmas one year. You would think I would have enough media access with two computers that have access to wireless communications that bring in BBC radio or the great Albany public radio station WAMC, or Jango music on demand, but no... there's a radio as well. I am beginning to sound like Andy Rooney..."Wouldn't you think kids would have enough to do with a stick and a ball, but no.o.o.o.o!...")
Anyway, it is a marker of my distractability these days. Too many pieces. Not enough concentration. I picked up the Atlantic article on Google making us stupid the other day. It was in the bathroom - another place where I can't allow myself to do only one thing. And I thought about assigning it to my students to read as a warning against the life style and against their well worn dependence on Google and Wikipedia as a source of truth and wisdom. Then I realized that the very distractability that the author worries about is what they (most of them anyway) thrive on. See? I can't even write a simple sentence without parenthetical comments!
So anyway, somewhere in the process of the last hour or day or week or month, I decided to refocus on the writing. It will theoretically allow me to restore the part of my brain that can do one thing. Yes. I aspire to doing one thing. Sad isn't it?
{Pause}
So I thought about ending this essay there, so I could add wood to the wood stove, plug in the ipad to the wall socket which would have necessitated finding the charger (I am pretty sure I know where I left the wall socket.) I have a call or two to make this morning, but no, I am going to make every effort to keep doing this one thing. (Did you get up to make a cup of coffee? Answer a ringing phone? Change channels? Are you there? Are you? Or did you turn to another person's blog? Huh? Huh?)
I took a class with the famous writing teacher Natalie Goldberg many years ago. The workshop was called "Fast Writing, Slow Walking." I am a master of slow writing and slower walking. But the core concept was to keep your hand moving on the page to foil "monkey mind" which is the built-in editor that tells you that everything you write is worthless even as it is emerging from your pen. The momentum blocks the distractability. "Write for 15 minutes without stopping the hand," she said. Then she asked us to take 10 minute meditation walks in which we moved so slowly that we could feel each bone of the foot hit the floor, each movement of the arm, each breath. It was actually both meditative and aerobic in the need to hold the body back. It seems that when we walk, much of the energy comes from sheer momentum, and in blocking the momentum, the muscles have to take over and work harder. Hmmm... I never thought of that before - The momentum of writing, when we allow it to, can take over the "work" of writing. The meditative practice of attention, can help build the muscles needed.
It is a theme I see often. Work on the writing with no distractions for a block of time. Then stop and do something different. An article in Poets and Writers Magazine recently advocated a 45 minute work block and then 15 minutes of walking the dog or preparing dinner in a crock pot. Simple advice. The trick is to do it... And then to return to the writing...Not so simple advice.
I think I'll add some wood to the stove and take the cats outside.
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